


Classical Heroes

by r_e_y_a



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: (all teenagers are weird), (insofar as teenage boys can be not total weirdos), Asexual Sirius Black, F/M, First War with Voldemort, Gen, because i deserve that representation, james potter is not a total weirdo, lily evans does not hate james potter, lily focused but not gonna be too strict about that because i love them all, more details in first chapter end notes, peter pettigrew is a cryptid, peter sucks as an adult but you won't see fanon peter here (bc he basically doesn't exist), severus snape exists but he's kinda a fuck so we don't like him, slytherin house isn't evil
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-06-01
Updated: 2020-05-31
Packaged: 2021-03-02 21:34:03
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,337
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24483598
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/r_e_y_a/pseuds/r_e_y_a
Summary: Lily had felt somewhat adrift in the magical world ever since she'd properly entered it, but faced with the summer after her fifth year, she makes a decision. It leads a very different Lily Evans to board the Hogwarts Express at the beginning of her sixth.—A coming of age in the midst of war story.
Relationships: James Potter/Lily Evans Potter
Comments: 6
Kudos: 8





	Classical Heroes

**Author's Note:**

> Hope you enjoy!

The summer of 1976 dawned bright, setting upon the scarlet train with an insistence that few inside protested. Although Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry taught, as the name implied, _magic_ , it was still _school_ , after all; as many pre-teen to teenage witches and wizards in a shared space (no matter how grand and vast it all was, especially with the selective inclusion of interior-expanding charms) as there were at Hogwarts only resulted in explosions of angst, ego, and _hormones_. Which naturally resulted in detentions, as word carried through the halls of Hogwarts as quickly as spells did. The detentions alone — or rather, the adult supervision — were enough to consider Hogwarts a place to escape from for some weeks during the summer. And that wasn’t even to consider the many feet of parchment on which students wrote assignments (often the night before they were due).

There were, of course, exceptions to the rule. A long time ago, there had been a boy who’d grown into a man over the course of his seven years at Hogwarts, and he’d mourned the train ride to London every year. He considered Hogwarts his home and regretted greatly ever asking the Professor if he could stay over the summer. As he got older, the more he considered the feasibility of merely _not boarding_ the Hogwarts Express at the end of June and taking up residence in the Room of Requirement; alas, he’d decided that the Professor was probably keeping an eye on him and thus, it wasn’t worth trying. But he had long since departed into the Magical World, and a new set of students had boarded the train with a mournful air among the end-of-term euphoria.

One such student was a vivacious redhead with an affinity for Charms and an interest in Potions; the former had embraced an eleven year old her with golden arms and a familiar warmth, as if to finally, entirely invite her into the magical world and say _‘you belong here’_. She excelled in the class, the diminutive Professor becoming her favourite for his enthusiasm and expertise on the first day of classes. The latter had crept up on her over several weeks. It had been her best friend, you see, who had coaxed her into admiring the delicacy and precision that the art required. The brightly coloured potions thrilled her whenever she stirred correctly at an integral stage, achieving a shade even more perfect than perfect. It was magic that happened in front of her eyes — _well_ , it wasn’t the only magic that happened in front of her eyes, but it took _time_ , the payoff becoming sweeter for it. She didn’t much care for the Professor of that class, but she loved Potions.

For Lily Evans, the summer dawned bright, not in the way that would be enjoyable should you find yourself on a beach, but in a harsh, angry way like forcing too much power into a _lumos_ charm after waking from a bad dream in the middle of the night. The end of the school year had brought OWLs, which actually went okay — Lily was a rather bright student in all of her classes, not just Charms and Potions, although she had gone a bit mad with studying by the time the exams rolled around.

It was what happened _during_ OWLs that had soured the taste of two months of freedom. It was going back to Cokeworth to endure two months of avoiding the boy who was once her best friend, never to return to the playground that was once their haven from spiteful sisters and hateful mothers, and violent fathers.

In Hogwarts, Severus’ choice of friends could be, largely, ignored. Save for when his friends got violent with those they decided needed to be put in their place — muggleborns mostly — it was possible to continue on like nothing had ever changed. Of course, he’d long asked to stop hanging out with her in public, electing to speak with her only when nobody else was around, but she excused that. She had thought that it was a self-preservation tactic, knowing what she did of his housemates. It had been… getting harder to ignore it lately, but Lily was determined not to up and abandon her best friend.

Little had she known that he had already abandoned her first. In spirit, at least. Because the Severus she knew — the one who’d told her her blood didn’t matter, who could be spiteful when provoked but mostly just wanted to be left alone — was gone.

He’d called her a _mudblood_. Tried to apologize for it by writing off every other mage of similar birth by saying she was _different_. And really, that was the last straw. Because she’d tried to ignore that he had chosen to fall in with people who’d rather kill than save her, but when he said that word, it hit her — even if he didn’t truly believe it, he was at least pretending to agree that _mudbloods_ deserved less. He was at least pretending to believe that she was the ‘only good’ _mudblood_ , that every other one of them deserved to be slaughtered for the crime of existing.

When his friends chose to attack Mary McDonald, they chose her at least in part because as Severus’ friend, Lily was off-limits.

Every argument they’d ever had about this echoed through her head; his excuses that it was hard enough to survive in Slytherin as a half-blood without conforming to the purist ideas casually tossed around by the fireplace. He managed to stand by the sidelines when his friends were tossing curses instead, rather than participating, but that was all he could do. He couldn’t speak up because they’d find a way to force him into compliance. She could hear his voice, drawling despite the urgency to speak so she wouldn’t be disappointed in him: _I have to, Lily. I have no choice._

It was bloody cowardly. Every time Potter and Black started up with him in the hallways, she was there to argue them down. The _names_ she had called them in fury because they wouldn’t just let it alone, on _his behalf!_ Lily knew she had a reputation for her temper, but it truly wasn’t so bad; she just deeply hated when people were attacked for doing nothing wrong. It wasn’t Severus’ fault that he was in Slytherin, it was just who he was — being ambitious and shrewd wasn’t _evil_ , and she’d had a best friend’s loyalty to spur her on twofold whenever they’d pick up wands.

That was another thing that burned her about Severus’ betrayal, and yes, it was a _betrayal_. Lily had cared for him so deeply — he was her best friend and had been since she was nine. Even though they’d drifted apart over the years, facilitated by conflicting social groups and separate interests, he was still her best friend. When he was being attacked for being who he was, Lily stood up for him and made sure that he was alright. She did it in the moment, throwing up a shield charm and jinxing the perpetrators. He never did the same for her. When his friends were baiting her into starting a fight or just generally being cruel, he _never_ stood up to them for her. Oh, he would make sure she knew that he thought they were idiots, or so he said, but he didn’t tell them to stop. Not when it mattered. He didn’t just passively go along with them out of fear for what they’d do to him if he didn’t; he _chose their side_ and made sure she never saw.

Anyway, she wasn’t ready to face a summer in Cokeworth alone. That was why, for her, the summer had dragged her along with it kicking and screaming.

Lily Evans was alone in the train compartment, feet up on the seat across from her with a book open in her lap. She wasn’t reading it, though. The train had finally gotten up to speed about ten minutes before and the countryside was a blur of green and blue flying by, nearly hypnotizing her as she fell into her thoughts. She had never been alone on the Hogwarts Express before. In first and second year, she’d had Severus; he’d pulled her aside during the summer before third year and asked her to sit with someone else from then on, as he’d gotten an invitation to sit with the Slytherins and couldn’t say no. From then on, she’d sat with the Gryffindors.

It was by design, of course, her sitting alone. Lily wasn’t popular by any stretch of the imagination, but she wasn’t _un_ popular either. Marlene had given her an invitation (verbally, as nobody was going around handing invitations — embossed, on a silver platter — to a train compartment save for Slughorn) to sit with them. It had been mildly shocking, actually. Marlene tended to sit with the boys on the train, as she’d been friends with Potter since she was a kid and fell in fast with the others. She wasn’t _one of them_ , but she had been the most vocal after the _Lake Incident_ , advocating for them on their behalf when Lily’s ire had still been simmering. She wasn’t so angry anymore, but Lily hadn’t expected Marlene to stretch out an olive branch like there were no sides; Lily versus Them versus Severus (versus Lily).

Marlene wasn’t her only other friend, so she could have sat with Mary, Dorcas, and Hestia. They’d asked her a million times if she was sure she wanted to be alone and reminded her just as many that she could always join them later if she felt like it. She knew that, she just… needed some time to think.

In the time following the Lake Incident, Lily had spent a lot of energy thinking about how she felt about Severus’ part and just as much ignoring how she felt about the _others_ who were involved. The night before, Lily had been struck with the realization that she just didn’t feel like celebrating the end of the year, which is what the train home usually was. It was as much a party as a sleepover was, save the alcohol (which would never make it on the train, there were charms to vanish illicit substances on the doors — Dorcas had learned that the hard way). She didn’t feel like the weepy goodbyes on Platform 9 ¾ which, while she wasn’t planning on leaving without her farewells, would be worse if she sat with them. This way, it was more like she’d already left without leaving.

She wasn’t planning on thinking about Potter and his friends until they’d passed by her compartment about five minutes after the train pulled out. She’d locked eyes with Potter through the glass and he’d seemed like he was going to pop his head in until Remus grabbed his shoulder and kept him moving.

Since then, they’d been on her mind.

Lily never hated them. They did things she didn’t like — hexing other students came to mind, some of their more mean pranks — and she butted heads with them a lot for it, but _hate_ was a strong word. Sometimes, she thought they were rather funny, like the time they’d slipped a potion into the pumpkin juice at breakfast, leading to make the drinker sing opera whenever they were asked a question. They’d given everyone animal parts during the Halloween feast just that past year and looked quite pleased with themselves for it; Lily had had the ears and whiskers of a red panda, and if Halloween at Hogwarts entailed _costumes_ , it would have given her the idea of dressing up as one.

So actually, James Potter and Sirius Black were not that bad. Remus, she rather liked — their patrols as Prefects were always an interesting conversation, despite him hanging her out to dry about once a month, although he had a _very good reason_ for it so she wasn’t cross. Peter… was… she didn’t know him very well, and their conversations usually ended up leaving her with questions, but he was earnest and had a surprisingly droll sense of humour.

The rumour that she hated them, Lily suspects, stemmed from her friendship with Severus. For two reasons. One, that she was friends with Severus at all, as his feelings about them were quite clear; two, that Lily did tend to over-exaggerate whenever Severus was in one of his moods. Most days, he was content to pretend that they didn’t exist, but every so often, he’d be reminded of Potter and Black’s general existence — worse, they’d have hexed him — and _Lily_ was the one who had to hear about it. She once tried to explain that even though they had proved themselves to be rather kind, if boisterous, and very funny, she hated their _prattishness_ as much as he did, but he’d looked at her like she was Brutus to his Julius Caesar, and she never tried again.

She’s called James Potter an arrogant toerag more than a few times, but she never actually meant it.

The Lake Incident was confusing for her, when she’d finally gotten a chance to breathe after crying her eyes out over the frustration and humiliation she’d felt at Severus’ hand. She knew that Potter and Black had started it just from sheer power of deduction, because Severus had been waiting for her under that tree and he didn’t typically start up with the two of them without having one or two of his own boys behind him, nor was he so brash about it; he didn’t draw their attention to him before cursing them, he cursed them first, usually when their backs were turned. (And just like she went in on Potter and Black for hexing Severus, she’d go in on him too for cursing Potter and Black. Those arguments tended to last for a few days.)

So, strike one.

Lily can honestly say that she’s never considered dating James Potter before. Sure, he’d had her on a few times flirting with her, even suggested meeting her in a broom cupboard when she had patrol, but she always figured it was just a joke. Why she’d thought that, she couldn’t say. But when he’d, for some reason, chosen _that moment_ to ask her out, Lily had been absolutely gobsmacked.

What world was he living in where asking a girl out you’ve hoisted her best friend up by the ankle and left him hanging there led to a _yes?_ Oh, she’d been so furious she’d nearly blacked out.

So, strike two.

And then everything went to shit, leaving Lily to deal with her anger and sorrow, and she hadn’t spoken to Potter or Black ever since. Hadn’t even really looked in their direction, but she hadn’t looked at Severus either. It was personal, but not because they were worse than her former best friend. Calling her a mudblood was or wasn’t worse than targeting Severus, depending on who you asked, but it felt like the explosive culmination of years of friction and arguments. It hurt her more because she expected more from Severus.

When her anger drained, Lily was left feeling hollow.

Maybe it was cynical of her, but what had Potter and Black really done that was all that different? Was she angry that they had gone after Severus again? Yes, but — that wasn’t her business anymore, Severus had made that clear e-fucking-nough. Thinking back on it, Lily couldn’t remember the last time they had picked on someone who couldn’t defend themselves. At some point, without her notice, they’d started to really focus on the Slytherins; not just any Slytherin, but the ones who leered at her and other muggleborns in the halls and made vaguely threatening remarks when the teachers weren’t paying attention. Potter and Black called them Junior Death Eaters, but Lily had been reluctant to believe that any student would want to be so enmeshed in the war.

Mostly because they’re all friends with Severus. Now she sees that she just didn’t want to believe that Severus would choose to befriend Death Eater wannabes. Once those rose coloured glasses were ripped off her face, it became hard to deny that that was exactly what they were.

And if they had stopped going after innocent students — harmless, school-encompassing pranks notwithstanding — and just went after the Junior Death Eaters, what did that say about their attack on Severus? If Lily wasn’t friends with Severus anymore because _he’d called her a slur_ , and Potter and Black only attacked Junior Death Eaters… if she wanted to be foolishly optimistic, she could try to say that it was because of their longstanding rivalry. Realistically, it was because he was also a Junior Death Eater.

It was tempting to hold onto her anger at them — Merlin knew Lily Evans could hold a grudge like nobody’s business — but she knew it wouldn’t be fair to blame them for Severus’ socio-political alignment. Even though he’d probably argue that their bullying pushed him into it at least partially (anything to avoid taking responsibility for his own actions), it hadn’t had anything to do with them. Severus had always had a mean streak. He’d hurt her sister so many times, if not physically, then verbally. Petunia had a barbed tongue to rival the purists who relied on political rather than magical strength, but she was still Lily’s sister. She’d asked Severus to just leave her sister alone so many times, but whenever Lily entered a room to find Petunia glaring at him somewhat harder than she usually did and Severus with a smirk, she knew that he hadn’t. And she had _resigned_ herself to just accepting that Severus would never back down for some reason instead of making an issue about it.

She took a deep breath, mindful of her lungs expanding to their fullest capacity and watching her breath fog up the window as she slowly exhaled. The nervous energy in her limbs (and _heart_ ) seemed to calm, less of a vibration and more of a hum. She didn’t try to smile because she knew her face would not cooperate, but neither did her eyes sting.

Potter and Black could not be blamed for Severus’ descent into the dark arts, and she still didn’t like the way that they targeted others — who decides to toss hexes because they’re _bored?_ — but she could accept that they weren’t being _cruel_. She was no longer friends with Severus, so she had no further obligation to defend him or row with them just because they got into a spat.

The train curved, not so much a turn as a gradual change in direction, shifting the sunlight beaming through the window just enough to land on her face.

Maybe over the summer, she could write to them. Not to be best friends — it would be odd at best and suspicious at worst. Lily didn’t want either of them thinking that she was trying to force them into the best friend shaped hole that she was left with, because if anyone would step into it then it would probably be Dorcas. But it wouldn’t hurt to get to know them a little better… writing would be a low-risk means of accomplishing that. Probably. It would at least make it less awkward when school started back up in September.

A few compartments down, three girls — only two sporting a complete set of eyebrows — played an absentminded game of Exploding Snap, popping squares of Honeydukes’ Finest into their mouth and wondering whether or not their friend was okay.

Those three girls — plus a fourth girl accompanied by three boys, the fourth boy having already departed with his mother — would be left staring after said friend, having received warm hugs from the girl who’d been as morose as a Dementor victim the last time they saw her. Yes, it was a very different Lily Evans who said goodbye to her friends on Platform 9 ¾. Very different indeed.

**Author's Note:**

> A couple of notes.
> 
> 1\. I didn't tag Severus because... he won't be very present in this fic. He'll make a few appearances and leave a mark, but his former friendship with Lily is absolutely not a developing plot. That chapter is closed for Lily, save the lingering effects. Still, it won't be Snape Bashing™️ because honestly, I think he does that successfully enough without my help. I'd rather write his appearances as accurately as I can with a biased or unreliable narrator.
> 
> 2\. I'll be borrowing some character tropes from fanon, but for the most part I'm going to be making something of a departure from it. 
> 
> 3\. Joanne personally slandered my own good name when she wrote Slytherins as evil with the exception of Andromeda, Regulus, and Slughorn. I will not be making the same mistake. 
> 
> 4\. Joanne's continuity minding sucks almost as much as her math skills. So the werewolf prank was in fifth year (apparently) and will not be a major plot point.
> 
> 5\. I have a vague idea of where I'm going with this. Aiming for weekly updates! Since this chapter is a prologue, it's a little more dry than I would usually write but I was in a car for two days (for what it's worth, I was moving back home; now quarantining for 14 days, COVID-free but still minding public health guidelines) and I'm TIRED. 
> 
> 6\. Unrelated to the fic, but I need to include this: be safe out there. It's scary and overwhelming, but it's necessary. Whether you're out there protesting or unable to, please make sure you're taking care of yourself. If you can't protest, you can still help! Sign petitions, donate if you can, and share resources. Black Lives Matter and it's about time the world caught up.
> 
> Aaaand that's it! Thanks for reading.


End file.
